


here's to hoping

by machellex



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - FBI, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:38:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9909047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/machellex/pseuds/machellex
Summary: Cassian only had one job: perform surveillance on Jyn Erso in hopes of locating her father. He's not supposed to get caught or give her his name or, for heaven's sake, share life stories over cups of coffee. And he's definitely, definitely not supposed to sleep with her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> forgive me everything about this is inaccurate!!!!

Cassian’s usually pretty good at his job. Honestly. 

He’s not quite entirely sure what happened _today_ , and he’s not quite entirely sure how his target—the ever infamous Jyn Erso—got out of sight (she was sitting at the foot of the stairs quite literally 10 minutes ago) or why she’s knocking against his window (she looks incredibly irritated with dark eyes and a frown pulling at her lips), but here she is. She doesn’t look happy in the slightest. 

He curses softly under his breath as he rolls down his window. If Draven finds out he lost his cover, he’ll flip. 

“You’re following me,” she says. 

There’s no room in her tone for argument, but he’s quick to disagree. He blesses the stars for a moment that Bodhi lives in the same apartment building, or he wouldn’t have a back-up plan for situations like these. “I am following someone. But it’s not you.”

The furrow between her brows deepens. She doesn’t believe him though he wonders who would. “Then who?” she challenges. 

“That’s not of your concern. Client confidentiality.”

She stares at him, arms crossed. “You’re a bad liar,” she says dryly, but she says little else before turning around and heading back up the stairs. 

This, he thinks, this, he can handle.

Here's to hoping anyway.

—

When she pops up at his window a couple of days later (Goddammit, he thought he had been so slick parking a couple of apartment complexes down) with two paper cups of coffee in hand, Cassian inwardly groans. 

“You’re compromising my cover,” he says to her as he rolls down his window. She’s not, really, considering his surveillance regards her. But having her around deters him from, well, being able to investigate her daily activities. 

Jyn raises a brow, gaze lingering around the neighborhood. “Like you’re so inconspicuous,” she snorts before shoving a coffee cup in his direction. He stares at it warily, eyes glazing over the slight tremor in her fingers and the light scars painted across her skin. “It’s not poison.”

He doesn’t move to grab it. “Why are you giving it to me?”

She shrugs. “You’ve been here for a while. You looked tired.”

His windows are tinted, so he doubts she’d actually be able to tell from afar. But the fact of the matter is that he’s been here since two in the morning, and that means she’s been aware of his existence for a while. 

He needs to be more cautious about his future locations. 

But he takes the cup, and it’s warm in his hand. 

“Thanks,” he murmurs. 

Jyn stares at him for a moment, a barrier of distrust like a window between them. She shakes her head then heads inside. 

—

“You’re pretending that I’m your target.”

Bodhi says it like it didn’t make sense the first time around. Cassian doesn’t know how else to explain it. He shrugs before nodding, his hands clasped between his knees. 

His friend raises a brow. “Have you told Draven she’s aware of you?”

Cassian shakes his head. 

“He’s going to kill you.”

“Exactly.”

Bodhi snorts as he hands his friend a beer. “You had one job, Cassian.”

“I know.”

“Do you think she’ll catch on?”

Cassian thinks of her distrustful gaze and the frown at her lips, the furrowed imprint permanently tattooed in the middle of her forehead. Her words, clipped and unsure and wary of every move he makes. He also thinks of the offered coffee cup, like a gift, a truce of some sort. 

“Hopefully not,” he breathes. 

—

He’s off duty this time when he sees her.

He’s not following her this time, he _swears._

_(_ Well, only a little. And by a little, he means subconsciously. He _is_ aware of all her favorite spots across the city.)

“Are you sure you’re not following me?” she says casually as the bartender hands her a beer. Her gaze flickers towards him for a moment before she takes a sip from the glass bottle.

“I’m not,” he assures her because he’s, for once, not lying—not right now anyway. He nods to a tabletop in the far back corner where Kay and Bodhi sit. “I’m not following anyone. I’m with friends.”

Jyn follows his gaze, and he swears for a moment she tilts her head curiously and with recognition. But then she’s shaking her head and murmuring to herself. “Cop?”

He blinks. “What?”

“Are you a cop?” She shrugs as she takes another sip. “Just a guess. What with your gun in the back of your pockets, and your surveillance outside my apartment.”

“I’m not a cop.” He’s not lying this time either. He’s an FBI agent. They all are. But he won’t tell her unless she asks. What’s the harm in keeping her guessing inaccurately? “We’re not cops.”

“Sure.” She doesn’t believe him. Her eyes shift up to him, amusement gleaming. He wasn’t sure if she could look that way—amused, happy if at all. “What’s your name?” 

He hesitates. He’s not sure if it’s smart to tell her, especially since he’s in charge of tailing her for at least another two weeks. The word slips out of his mouth before he can think twice. “Cassian.”

“I’m Jyn.”

This, he knows. He knows a lot about her—her age (26), her career (a somewhat entry-level job in a nuclear engineering facility),her salary ($80k), her family (and well, that leads him right to the reason she’s his tail subject to begin with—Galen Erso), even how she likes her coffee (two creams, one sugar but no to the foamy milk stuff). He knows a lot about her, but he doesn’t say so.

“Nice to meet you, Jyn,” he says quietly.

Then he downs his beer because really, he should be better at his job, and he definitely shouldn’t be at a bar with his surveillance subject or drinking with her or sharing _names_ for God’s sake. He’s good at this, he swears. He doesn’t know why she keeps distracting him—compromising his case. 

He’s better than this.

He swears. 

—

Before he knows it, she’s tagging along in his car while he pretends to stakeout Bodhi’s apartment when in reality, he’s staking out _hers._

“This is a bad idea,” Kay says as soon as he finds out, “and Draven will not be happy.”

Bodhi seconds. “You were only supposed to survey whether or not she’s been in contact with her father. Not become her friend.”

Of course Cassian knows this, he _knows_. What he doesn’t know is why he’s not stopping it. He’s too far gone, and it’s far too late, and Jyn has somehow wedged her incredibly small self as a constant in his passenger seat, flipping through his CDs and asking questions about his supposed target. On the bright side, he thinks, at least she comes with coffee. 

But there shouldn’t even be a bright side. 

Cassian will take what he can get.

“You’re a private investigator,” she says the second time she’s cross-legged in his car.

“I’m not a private investigator.” 

“I searched your name, Cassian Andor. The Internet is a wonderful place.” He doesn’t tell her the Internet just doesn’t understand the difference between a PI and an FBI. Jyn palms her chin in her hand. “Why a PI?” 

He’s not going to answer that question—it buries deep in a history he could care less to explain, one that makes his heart churn just a little if he lingers on it a second too long. Cassian shrugs as he looks towards the apartment, eyeing the bright-lit window Bodhi lives in. He turns back to her. “Why are you here?”

“I’m curious.”

“You’re compromising my case,” he mutters. “I could get in trouble for this.”

She side-glances him, habitually pulls on her hair tie. _Snap._ “You’re free to kick me out.”

He doesn’t. It’s like she knows he won’t. 

The third time, she starts to ask about Bodhi—not that she knows his name is Bodhi or even what he looks like. 

“Will you tell me about your subject?”

“Confidential,” he says firmly. 

“Are you sure he exists?” 

“He exists.”

She purses her lips. He wonders if she believes him before she nods and moves along to a different subject.

The fourth time, “You should find a different job.”

“Is that so?” he murmurs as he palms the cup of coffee she’s given him. It’s cold outside, and therefore cold in his car, so he’s grateful for the emanating warmth. 

“You’re not a very inconspicuous person to be doing surveillance,” she says, eyeing him carefully. 

“He hasn’t caught me yet.”

She considers this. “No, he hasn’t,” she agrees. “But I have.”

“You’re not my target.”

“Then your target seems simple-minded.”

The fifth time, she complains about his job. 

“This is a lot less interesting than I imagined it to be,” she sighs, kicking her feet up against the dashboard. Her head lolls back against the carseat, eyes closing. 

“You don’t have to stay,” he says dryly. “No one asked for your intrusion.”

“Don’t you ever tail him?”

He nods. He does. Not Bodhi, but definitely Jyn. Almost all the time. But she’s only ever in his car during the nights for some reason unbeknownst to him, and he thanks the stars Bodhi never leaves at two or three in the morning so he doesn’t have to take her along for a falsified trail. “Don’t you have work in the morning?” 

She shrugs. “It’s fine. I don’t sleep much anyway.”

Neither does he, really. And usually, he’d be alone during those moments, but he’s somehow come to enjoy her company in the strangest of ways. He wonders if that’s why she’s here too, and if they’re simply two people seeking company because the night is often too dark and lonesome for those who have nightmares instead of dreams. 

The sixth time, they talk about her family. 

“What are your parents like?” 

He shrugs. “They died when I was young.”

She nods in understanding, and then there’s silence. 

“Yours?” 

And this—this is the moment he’s been waiting for, why he’s been surveying her these past few weeks, to know whether or not Galen Erso and his goddamn nuclear machine are in contact with his abandoned daughter. 

Jyn doesn’t think twice, merely shrugs. She says it so casually, as if they almost don’t exist to her at all, but he notices her pull on her wrist band. A nervous habit. “I don’t know. My mother died when I was little, and my father disappeared around the same time.”

“Do you ever wish to see him?”

She furrows her brow as she stares at her coffee cup. “Sometimes. He’s my father, but…” She doesn’t say much else, and she doesn’t have to for him to understand. He thinks he has his answers, that Jyn has no idea who Galen is anymore, that she’s innocent and unable to trace them back to the nuclear machine. 

The seventh time, Cassian is stupid.

The seventh time, he sleeps with her. 

He blames the coffee. He needed to pee goddammit. He usually doesn’t, not during a surveillance. He has his emergency tin in his car, but like hell he’ll break that out now in front of her. 

She invites him upstairs. 

Then there’s silence and more coffee and before he knows it, he has her pressed up against the kitchen counter.

The seventh time was a bad idea.

So was, probably, the first.

Draven will not be happy.

—

The worst part—the _worst_ part is that he knows it’s wrong. But he keeps doing it. 

Cassian is good at his job, he fucking swears.

But there’s just something about Jyn that he craves, and kissing her, touching her—it satisfies an ache inside him he didn’t even know existed. He can’t stop.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” she murmurs between their second, third, fourth—something maybe larger, maybe far after that number (he’s lost a lot of counts)—kiss. “Don’t you need to keep tabs on your subject?”

She is his subject. He won’t say that. “It’s fine. I doubt he’ll do much, like how he hasn’t done much in the past two weeks.”

“Why are you keeping tabs on him then?”

“Just in case.” 

He doesn’t explain much else.

She doesn’t ask.

He lets her consume him.

This is a dangerous game he’s playing, Cassian is very, very much aware (and often constantly reminded by his statistically driven partner). But he thinks he may be in too deep. If she finds out why he’s actually here (aside from the occasional heart flutter and the burning ache inside him), if Draven finds out that he’s been, well, sleeping with her, if Jyn is lying to him about Galen Erso—there are so many ifs, too many ifs.

He shouldn’t be here.

That knowledge doesn’t stop him.

He keeps kissing her.

And later, when they’re in her bed, and she’s curled against him, he finds himself talking about his family. He hates talking about his family. He’s willing to with her.

He doesn’t understand this pull Jyn has on him. 

But when he looks into her eyes, he just wants to keep giving more.

—

“If you keep fornicating with Jyn Erso, the likelihood of a successful case is slim to none, Cassian. Slim to none. There is a nuclear weapon on the rise. She is not worth that.”

“I know, Kay. I _know_.” Cassian buries his head in the files strewn across his desk.

Kay raises a brow as he drops a cup of coffee at his desk. “Then it does not make sense that you haven’t stopped.”

“Don’t remind me. I know.”

—

When Draven finds out, Cassian’s pretty sure he’s going to get fired. 

“You compromised the goddamn case, Andor! How long have you been here? Years! _Years_. You know better than this. How are you so fucking sure Erso doesn’t know where her father is? How do you know she isn’t lying to you? God!” There is fire in his eyes, and his voice like steel staggering down his spine. “I didn’t take you to be this incompetent or emotionally swayed.”

Honestly, neither did Cassian. 

He doesn’t know if Jyn is lying. He’s not sure, not entirely. He just hopes, and he hopes a lot. 

He gets suspended for two weeks without pay instead. That’s far better than what he had expected. At least he still has a job to return to.

He’s told something along the lines of, “Stay away from Jyn Erso, Andor. I fucking mean it.”

He texts her, tells her he’s off the case and will be out of the city for a short while on a new one. So that she doesn’t wait up, so that she doesn’t expect him. 

A short while becomes longer than two weeks. Then it becomes a month. A month and a half.

He hopes she’s not waiting for him.

He doesn’t really deserve that much.

—

The next time he sees her, she’s being brought in for questioning. 

It’s been two months.

For a moment, she’s confused when she catches sight of him at the door. Then he painfully watches a faint light completely die in her eyes. 

“Chirrut told me not to trust you,” is the first thing that comes out of her mouth. She appears complacent, calm even. Resigned, mostly. He doesn’t ask who Chirrut is. He assumes a friend. She looks up, and he recognizes the familiar glare in her eyes from when they first met. “A man who carries his prison with him.”

He doesn’t respond. A prison is a strong word, and a prison he does not carry. He would define it more like a personal persecution. He’s not the one to bring her in for questioning anyway—that was Kay’s decision, so he won’t say much at all. 

“I’ll be in the observation room,” he mutters quietly. 

He watches as Kay explains why they’ve brought her in, that her father has built a nuclear weapon, and they _need_ to find him and prevent it from going into the wrong hands. He watches her eyes glaze over and darken with animosity, watches the tremor in her fingers, and he almost leaves the room because he can’t stand seeing her like this. 

When for the sixth time, he watches Jyn tell Kay that she hasn’t seen her father since she was nine, Cassian decides it’s time to intervene. He can’t stand hearing the gritty pain in her voice nor does he any longer want to watch the way her fists clench in her lap and the way her fingers pull on her wristband. He catches her eye as he pulls his partner from the interrogation room, and her gaze darkens murderously. He tries to ignore the twitch in his heart.

Kay storms into the observation room and spins on him. “It was not smart for you to pull me. You are negatively impacting our chances to solve this case, Cassian.”

Cassian impatiently drums his fingers against the counter. “Why did you bring her here?”

“Surveillance was not getting us anywhere.”

“She doesn’t know where her father is. We should let her go.”

“Jyn Erso is the only key we have. You know this. Probabilistically speaking, it is incredibly unfortunate that our chances grow extremely low without her.” Kay pauses, eyes narrowing, watching the way Cassian’s eyes flit back and forth. “You are worried about her. I do not understand. You are letting emotions get in the way—you have never acted so unexpectedly before, Cassian.”

In the corner of his eye, he watches Jyn glare at the table. Then runs his hand over his mouth. “Let me talk to her.”

“That is a very bad idea.”

“I know. But I know her.”

And he does. 

More than her age (26), her career (a pretty solid entry-level job in a nuclear engineering facility only fifteen minutes from her apartment),her salary ($80k), her family (a dead mother, an abandoning father, and a foster father through all those other years), even how she likes her coffee (two creams, one sugar but no to the foamy milk stuff but yes to cinnamon). 

More than all of that, he knows her. 

Like the way her guard holds through bared teeth and furrowed brows, but really, she’s just scared. Maybe of being abandoned by the people around her, maybe of letting people in too much. He's not completely sure of the reason why though he’s never wanted to pry too much. Maybe he did to her what she had always been afraid of.

Or like the way she fiddles with her elastic band at her wrist, pulling the black cord and watching it slap against her skin when she’s nervous. 

Or like the way she tries to hide her gaze behind her bangs, shakes her head and looks down when she’s not ready to look him in the eyes. 

Or the way her lips quirk when she is. 

He knows her.

Better than he wish he did.

—

“Jyn.”

“Cassian.”

He pulls the chair opposite her and takes a seat. The silence in the room envelops him like a chokehold, and he feels even a simple exhale may cut the tension and let hell loose from its cuffs. He tries not to breathe too loudly. 

She leans back in her seat, eyes fluttering to her fists. Her fingers move to her elastic band, pulls at it. “I told him I don’t know where my father is.” She shifts her gaze to him for a split second. “You know that.”

“I know,” he says quietly. 

Her eyes flash with anger. She pulls at her elastic band. _Snap!_ But she doesn’t say anything, though he knows she wants to. He’s sure, if someone wasn’t on the other side of the interrogation room, that she would. She’s never been one to hold back. 

“If you don’t know where your father is—”

“I don’t.”

“If you don’t know where your father is,” he repeats firmly, and what he is about to say next may warrant a death threat from his partner, but—“would you help us find him?”

First, there’s silence. Then Jyn shoots up from her chair, and it scrapes against the concrete floor, the noise splitting his ear drum in two. Her fingers find her wristband. _Snap._ Her fingers tremble, voice shakes. “How could you ask me that? _How_? How could you do this, Cassian?”

“Take a seat, Jyn,” he says calmly. “You’re simply in shock.”

“I will _not_ take a seat,” she argues. “Shock was when you disappeared for two fucking months without a reason why. Shock was when I find out you’ve been following my ass all along and _lying_ about it. Shock was when you slept with me for answers about my personal life and then disappeared— _that’s_ shock. 

“This is just me being pissed at you, and I have every right to be. Answer my goddamn question.”

“Take a seat, Jyn,” Cassian repeats, eyes narrowing, and he is doing his very best to refrain from letting his voice consume the room. He won’t do this, won’t let his emotions get the best of him, he _won’t_. 

“You can’t be serious,” she seethes. “You don’t get to do this. You abandoned me, Cassian. You know how that makes me feel. You don’t get to ask—”

“Dammit, Jyn! Take the goddamn seat!” he roars, feels a vein at his temple bulge from under his skin. He murmurs a curse under his breath, turns his head to the side and presses his fingers against his forehead. He can quite literally _feel_ Kay’s glare on the other side of the mirror, but pretends as if it doesn’t exist. The chair clinks against the ground as she slides down in her seat. He lets out a loud exhale, but not even that will take the weight off his chest. 

He shouldn’t be doing this.

_What_ was he thinking? From day one when he first met her, what the _hell_ was he thinking?

The problem was, it was like he hadn’t been thinking at all, not with her around, not from the very start. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. He doesn’t mean he’s sorry for yelling, but he’s sure she knows what he’s sorry for. “I’m sorry.” He looks up, then, and catches her hard gaze. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, and believe me—” he laughs, so coldly, he almost makes himself flinch, “ _believe_ me, I had no intentions of—I never meant… there’s no good, real explanation. I just fucked up. And I’m sorry.” 

When Jyn doesn’t say a word—he didn’t think she would—he licks his lips and sighs. “Just consider helping. Please. The nuclear weapon… it affects us. All of us.” 

Cassian pulls himself up out of his seat and closes his files, fingers gripping too tightly on thin paper until it begins to crumple. 

His lips pull into a frown as he shifts his gaze back and forth until, “Jyn, I… didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean to do anything—it just… happened. And I should have withdrew from the case, and I didn’t, but I will now. You’re…” he pauses, looking at her carefully before muttering under his breath. Something. She’s really something. “Conflict of interest.”

Jyn is silent, still pulling at her wristband. She refuses to look him in the eye, but she’s staring at him, which is… better than nothing, he thinks. When he’s at the door, she finally speaks. “You should get a different job.”

He smiles wryly. “So you’ve told me.”

He shuts the door behind him.

Somewhere in the background, he hears Kay say something along the lines of, “ _You’re withdrawing from the case?_ ” But he’s completely lost it because he barely has the mind to respond something as simple as ‘yes.’

—

Two or three weeks later—Cassian’s lost count, he’s been in a bit of a daze because well, for one, he’s been denied clearance for field work until he’s more “emotionally stable” (Draven specifically had said, “It pains me to say this, but take a goddamn break. You’re slipping, Andor”) and if he were being honest with himself, he fucking _misses_ her even if just a little—he finds her sitting outside of his apartment with two coffee cups in hand. The beating of his heart stills. He blinks once, twice, three times because he is really unsure if he’s dreaming because he’s been dreaming a _lot._

“I’m real,” she says dryly after a moment. She dusts herself off and pulls herself up from the footstep of his door. 

“So you are,” he says slowly. He buries his hands into his coat because he’s afraid she’ll be able to see them tremble with nerves. He coughs. “What are you doing here?”

She furrows her brows and stares at the cups of coffee in her hands. As if she’s been asking herself the same question. He wouldn’t doubt that for a second. “We found my father,” she finally says. “We’re in the process of making sure the weapon is deactivated, and the plans are currently being secured.”

“I heard.” She knows he’s aware, so that can’t be why she’s physically here in front of him—to tell him things most agents know of. He tilts his head casually. “Is that all?”

Jyn frowns. “Are you going to invite me inside?”

“Should I?”

“Yes,” she says with a jut of her chin. 

He raises a brow but doesn’t move to unlock his door. “Why are you here, Jyn?”

She huffs impatiently, fidgets with the cups of coffee in her hand, and he swears if she could, she’d be pulling at a hair tie on her wrist. He almost misses it, that sound. Her body heaves with an exhale, and she’s got a little scrunch of skin between her brows as she concentrates on her breathing. Finally, she thrusts a coffee cup towards him. 

He stares. 

“It’s not poison.”

“I know that.” He doesn’t, not really. Especially since last he’s seen her, they weren’t on quite great terms (and by not great, he means bad—just bad.) He was, for one, incredibly surprised when Kay told him she was moving forward with offering assistance to the case. 

Jyn heaves in frustration. “Jyn Erso.”

Cassian merely stares because now— _now,_ he’s just confused. 

“This is where you say Cassian Andor.”

“I would,” he says slowly, “but you know that.”

“Cassian, for fuck’s sake—I’m trying to tell you… I—” she pauses, growling to herself. She breathes in, breathes out. “I want to start over.”

The silence is long, mainly because Cassian is unsure if he’s heard her correctly or if he’s _heard her correctly_. There’s a loud static in his ears, and his heart seems to be beating a bit too fast for his liking, and he’s wondering if she means it and if this is even Jyn Erso who’s standing before him. Jyn, as if she is willing to forgive him for deceiving her and sleeping with her and just, well, for all the mistakes up until now (which are… quite a lot.) 

He doesn’t even think he’s worth forgiving. 

Jyn’s arms begin to falter, and there’s hesitance and fear in her eyes. “If… you don’t want to, I understand—”

“Are you sure?” he asks quietly, interrupting. “I don’t think I really deserve that.”

She considers this. “Maybe not,” she draws out, and he feels it, that feeling of fallen hopes, but then she’s peering up at him with a somber expression. Her voice is low when she speaks. “But I tried hating you.”

He raises a brow. 

“It didn’t work for very long,” she explains hastily, licking her lips. 

There’s silence, then, and she’s searching something within his gaze and in that moment, he’s trying to memorize her face before she takes back her peace offering and steps out of his life forever. 

But she holds up the cup of coffee instead. “It’s getting cold. Are you going to invite me inside now?”

Cassian eyes the cup and smiles.

This, he thinks, this, he can handle.

Here's to hoping anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> cash me on tumblr [@ma-chelle](http://ma-chelle.tumblr.com/)


End file.
